The Nixon Administration on Busing: Twisted Words of Support

This 1972 Wall Street Journal article calls out President Nixon for not backing the constitutional amendment that would ban busing students for school integration that he had previously supported while he claims to listen and be open to other solutions.

Authored by Brandon K. Rouzaud

In the not-so-distant past, racial segregation was not only acceptable but was required, and efforts to dismantle it finally began in 1954 with the Supreme Court ruling of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (Rodgers and Bullock 1972). While some cities peacefully desegregated their facilities, the southern states continued their archaic aggressions towards social progress through creating school legislation to slow the process (1972). 

Over the next 10 years, the various congresses and presidents showed little to no action towards advancing desegregation, and it wasn’t until congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forced government departments to report the status of desegregation to congress and the president, that there was some movement towards equality (Wise 1974). While a Supreme Court ruling and a congressional act should be enough to force progress, the Civil Rights Act of 1969 had to be passed a few years later to make it so people could not be discriminated against for any individual reason (Wise 1974). However, both the 1964 and 1969 acts took too long to be officially enforced laws and were still met with local government resistance (Wise 1974). 

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Cold War Détente: Perturbation during a Period Designed for Peace

Authored by Ryan McDonnell

Photo of a primary source document in the Center for Migration Studies of New York’s Arthur P. (“Skip”) Endres Papers Collection. Congressional Record – Extension of Remarks: What Price Détente?, submitted by Honorable John R. Rarick of Louisiana in the House of Representatives, December 12, 1974.

During the late 1960s period of the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union began to share concerns over rising geopolitical tensions in a world ever conscious of the potential for nuclear devastation. Such concerns led to a roughly ten-year period of “détente,” where both nations sought to ease tensions through negotiations pertaining to arms control from 1969 to 1979 (Cahn 1998, 96). Though initially détente was popularly perceived as a step toward a safer and more peaceful world, a growing number of U.S. citizens condemned the program for functioning against the social and economic welfare of the nation (Zanchetta 2013). The 1974 article “What Price Détente,” found in a Congressional Record from the Arthur P. (“Skip”) Endres Papers Collection of the Center for Migration Studies, features a strong argument that sought to reveal the economic harm of the détente in order to garner support for the modification or abandonment of this foreign policy initiative.

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